§. 202. Wherever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to
another's harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the
law, and makes use of the force he has under his command to compass that upon
the subject which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate, and
acting without authority may be opposed, as any other man who by force invades
the right of another. This is acknowledged in subordinate magistrates. He that
hath authority to seize my person in the street may be opposed as a thief and a
robber if he endeavours to break into my house to execute a writ,
notwithstanding that I know he has such a warrant and such a legal authority as
will empower him to arrest me abroad. And why this should not hold in the
highest, as well as in the most inferior magistrate, I would gladly be
informed. Is it reasonable that the eldest brother, because he has the greatest
part of his father's estate, should thereby have a right to take away any of
his younger brothers' portions? Or that a rich man, who possessed a whole
country, should from thence have a right to seize, when he pleased, the cottage
and garden of his poor neighbour? The being rightfully possessed of great power
and riches, exceedingly beyond the greatest part of the sons of Adam, is so far
from being an excuse, much less a reason for rapine and oppression, which the
endamaging another without authority is, that it is a great aggravation of it.
For exceeding the bounds of authority is no more a right in a great than a
petty officer, no more justifiable in a king than a constable. But so much the
worse in him as that he has more trust put in him, is supposed, from the
advantage of education and counsellors, to have better knowledge and less
reason to do it, having already a greater share than the rest of his brethren.
